Washington -- President Clinton says that if the United States does
not ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) now pending before
the Senate, "then the rest of the world will be compelled to treat us
like they treat the rogue states, and it will --- just basically to
ostracize us and impose trade sanctions on our chemical companies."

And, he added, "we'll deserve it if we don't ratify it, because we
won't be good citizens in the world."

The President's remarks came during an April 8 question-and-answer
session he and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien conducted with
reporters just before their private Oval Office meeting.

Clinton said he thinks ratification is "the right thing to do for the
world and critical for America's leadership that we do it." He also
said that he did not think that all the military leaders and leading
Republican political figures who recently joined him at the White
House in a public display of support for CWC "would do something that
was dangerous for America."

Following is the White House transcript:

(begin transcript)

THE WHITE HOUSE
April 8, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AND
PRIME MINISTER CHRETIEN IN PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

The Oval Office

.....

Q: Jesse Helms called the Chemical Weapons Convention today
destructive and defective and dangerous. The hearing is not off to a
good start.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know he's not for it. All I want to do is try
to get it on the floor of the Senate and persuade two-thirds of the
Senators to be for it.

I think it's obvious that it's the right thing to do for the world and
critical for America's leadership that we do it. I do not believe that
all those military leaders who were here with us earlier this week,
and the Republican leaders -- including Senator Kassebaum-Baker and
former Secretary of State Jim Baker -- would do something that was
dangerous for America. I think it's critically important for America.

If we don't ratify it then the rest of the world will be compelled to
treat us like they treat the rogue states, and it will --- just
basically to ostracize us and impose trade sanctions on our chemical
companies. And we'll deserve it if we don't ratify it, because we
won't be good citizens in the world.

Q: Will you speak with Senator Helms between now and -

THE PRESIDENT: We're working with him. We've worked hard with him and
we've worked through a lot of his objections and we'll keep working.
But I'm going to focus hard on trying to -- not only to persuade him,
but we have to 67 votes; we've got to get it out of the committee and
then we've got to have 67 votes. That's what we've got to do. We're
going to try to do it.
.....